“All it takes is a little bit of education into child sexual abuse and realizing how unfortunately typical my scenario is. The trauma and the psychological effects of child sexual abuse last for so long. I had no understanding of this until up to just over a year ago. I’m just at the beginning of my healing process. I ‘m sure I’ll be dealing with this for the rest of my life.”

What Robson calls “typical” makes sense to me. As an educator, friend, and girlfriend, I’ve heard many tales of sexual abuse from survivors. People are afraid to come forward, and so they don’t. Children are shaped by the adults, and if an adult who is a constant presence and influence tells you the earth is flat, the sky is fuchsia, and sexual abuse is love, then you believe it. Later, when these same survivors are cutting, isolating, rebelling, or contemplating suicide, many times they don’t call the abuser a predator. They keep silent, feel terrible, and ask themselves, “What’s wrong with me?”

As the character of Wendy says in my novel, “I’m bad. Hounded by night creatures. Stamped by the smoothest of criminals.”

Survivors might even protect the perpetrator and return to him. There still can be trust and loyalty in the face of abuse. The relationship between predator and victim is emotionally complex and can be paralyzing static. When ages are dramatically different, the dynamic is not unlike a carnivore with fangs sunk deep in the weaker animal. Imagine hearing when you are seven, You’ll go to jail. I’ll go to jail. This is love. This is right. It’s you and me against the world. We’re soul mates.

Do you easily lose that imprint to trust your abuser, that stamp so deep it forms daily thought and action, automatic as your ABCs? Do you just slough off those routines and habits like a cloak and say, I’m over it? I remember unpleasant incidents from 1978, 1981, and 1983. And those fifth, seventh, and ninth grade moments still impact how I see myself. Sometimes I am still that embarrassing nerd who uses too many big words, that “big palooka,” or that girl in the “dog parade.” If I still recall these little slings and arrows from formative years, I can’t imagine how sexual abuse might have changed my life. I know my self-perception and esteem is shaped by my interpretation of those experiences. We evolve in response to experience; it doesn’t disappear but gets locked into our bones.

So if Robson was indeed abused, to say that Robson should have just outed his story at 14, 24, or even now—like that’s an easy thing—is like me saying I should feel comfortable broadcasting how Carolyn mocked me in front of the fifth grade class and Colleen called me a big palooka in front of two girls in the Parish Hall and Andy called me and my girlfriends “the dog parade” in the freshman hallway. These aren’t trophies from my adolescence I like to brag about; I look weak, ugly, and lame. Again, these are just the little wounds of everyday living; these aren’t sexual violence or trauma.

Just like coming out of the closet, there is much to lose when you voice your truth. If people know you’ve survived something ugly—never mind your claiming that someone they like has committed evil—you are not only truth-teller but life-changer. You are breaking the rules of the game, stopping the dance, and flipping others’ perceptions. You will be hated for speaking up.

You may wonder, why risk it and speak up now and take up the fight? Robson’s detractors claim he’s a liar who wants money. Perhaps. Perhaps Robson is making this all up, and he’s not experiencing PTSD in his thirties, and he doesn’t need justice. Perhaps he’s only money driven. Perhaps.

But this is not my battle nor me trying to prove Robson right or wrong. I don’t know him personally. This story, to me, is about why survivors don’t tell truth right away, and what the dynamic of abuse creates. Instead of taking sides, we should ask, How does abuse happen, and how do predators work? How long does it take—or should it take (because people ask, “Why’d he wait so long?”)—a survivor to confess the abuse? What does the data say?

In my book, Wendy nurtures a rarefied Michael Jackson obsession. It’s a point of connection between her and her mother’s new boyfriend, who gains her trust through music and charisma and attention. Her mother ignores her, but he doesn’t. As he gains her trust, her crush ignites, and her hopes for a stable future with him as a potential stepdad soar. Until the day when the flirting goes way past flattery to molestation, and then rape.

At first Wendy thinks it’s her fault, that she somehow brought this on herself. It doesn’t matter that she’s 15 and he’s 45. She still takes full responsibility. She says, “For nights I’ve dreamed of cleavers separating his hand from his arm, his head from his neck. But each dream ends with my hands, arms, head flying into outer space.”

As I wrote this book, I had in the back of my mind the testimony of several people (friends, former partners, and former students). I read The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse with its stories of many survivors. I learned about profiles of predators, the patterns of grooming and abuse, and the trauma that persists long after the crimes have stopped. I listened to evangelist Joyce Meyer’s story. But I don’t pretend to be an expert. My fiction bubbles up for many reasons, and no doubt one of them is response to stories told to me, my artistic processing of the tears, fear, and physical and mental breakdowns I was privileged to share.

Wendy knows one thing for sure: her voice will out. She doesn’t know how or when, but it stays like a chant in her head her when she can’t sleep at night. “Coming soon,” she says, “The Big Reveal. This girl will peel back the glittering glove, and she will doff her mask.”

Wendy Redbird Dancing wants the truth to unfurl. Maybe Wade Robson does, too. But since I’m not his judge, I’ll trust only in my fiction. It attempts to represent the testimony of those I love. And that testimony tells me that sexual abuse happens, it’s hard to tell, and the outing of it can be a lifelong journey.

Writing Prompts:

If you have not been sexually assaulted, imagine that you have been, and you are seven years old. Who would or could you tell? How would you tell someone?

If you don’t tell anyone, why not?

How might sexual abuse affect your later life?

What evidence tells you that someone is lying about abuse? How do you know a person is a liar?

Is it right or wrong to seek damages for child sexual abuse years later?

One in three women and one in six men may become victims of sexual abuse or violence. If you are not a victim yourself, what questions do you have about others’ experience with sexual violence? What do you want to learn?